


Valuable

by darklyndsea



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, Slavery, slave mentality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 09:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15704652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklyndsea/pseuds/darklyndsea
Summary: You are a slave. You were born a slave, and you will die a slave.





	Valuable

You are a slave. You were born a slave, and you will die a slave.

That knowledge is burned deeper into you than the tan from Tatooine's suns, deeper than your knowledge of mechanics, deeper than your own name. You are a slave. You have always been a slave. You will always be a slave.

It's not that no slave is never freed—it is illegal on Tatooine to free a slave, but it's not like anybody takes any more notice of the laws than they have to, and freeing a slave isn't the kind of crime you can't get away with, not like defying the Hutts or not paying your debts is. Freeing a slave is the kind of crime you can bribe your way out of (at least, if it's your slave). But the kinds of people who would free slaves, they're not the kind of people who would buy slaves, not even to free them, and they _are_ the kind of people who don't last long on Tatooine—they're the kind of people who get into fatal arguments with the Hutts. Even at nine years old, you know that nobody's going to buy you and set you free. Even in fairy tales, that only happens to pretty girls.

Escape's the other option. You've been looking into how to build a chip scanner. You haven't quite figured it out yet—the chips are designed to be hard to detect—but you're close. Finding the chip won't be the hard part. Escaped slaves are hunted down. Whether it's one hour later or dozens of years, they're all eventually caught.

You're lucky. You might not know your father or any extended family, but you still have your mother. She's gone to great lengths to ensure that you're as educated as a slave is allowed to be—you can read, and you're already a skilled mechanic. You're _valuable_ , in a way that few slaves are. It would be a waste for Watto, or any owner in the future, to use you only for hard labor or as a body slave. Any slave can do those things. Not many can make repairs and rebuild droids. Not many have the ability to understand it even when they're taught, and there are few masters who are willing to allow their slaves to learn a skill that makes it easier for them to escape. And that value protects you from everybody other than your owner: who would want to pay for damaging another's valuable possession?

You're even allowed the illusion of possessions: a home in the slave quarters and any junk you can scrounge (nothing from Watto's shop, of course, nothing he thinks he could make a profit on). You don't _really_ own it, of course. You are a possession; you can't own anything. Everything you are allowed to use belongs to your owner, even when you're the one who scrounged it and he wouldn't want it anyway. There's a rumor that the law says that the law requires owners to give their slaves certain things: two sets of clothes per year, shelter, and food and water. But you know that's a lie. There's nothing stopping an owner from staking his slaves out naked to die under the suns except the expense of buying a new slave. Even if the rumor was true and it was a law, who would bother to enforce it? What witness could testify to it, with slaves barred from court?

Your name is your most valuable possession by virtue of being the only thing you really own. It was the only gift your mother could give to you—she couldn't even give you yourself. Even when the two of you are separated, sold to different masters, you'll be able to hold onto it as proof of who you are and where you came from, and no master will be able to take it away from you unless he mind-wipes you.

* * *

 

Your master has renamed you Darth Vader.

You are a slave. You were born a slave, and you will die a slave.


End file.
